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ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1957 



transparent, the organism carries oval-shaped objects which give it 

 color. It secretes a slimy substance from its surface in huge con- 

 centrations and this in turn gives the water the consistency of thin 

 syrup. 



The first step was to determine exactly which species of Gymnodin- 

 ium was causing the damage. Careful study disclosed it to be different 

 from any previously known to science. Accordingly, Dr. Charles 

 Davis, of the Miami staff, wrote a careful description and officially 



Figure 1. — The cause of the red tide, Gymnodinium brevis, magnified 3,000 times. First 

 found in the 1947 outbreak. (Diagram courtesy of Sea Frontiers.) 



named it a new species, Gymnodinium brevis. It was not long before 

 the press and the general public nicknamed it "Jim Brevis." It is 

 still known by this to the residents of Florida's west coast. 



GAS WARFARE OR FOREIGN AGENTS? 



While this was happening there were many other theories advanced, 

 both by the general public and by armchair scientists. Some said that 

 nonpoisonous plankton clogged the gills of fishes and asphyxiated 

 them. Others held that wartime poison gases had been dumped into 

 the ocean and that the release of these was responsible both for dead 



